Aamis

I do not understand Assamese language. I wasn't even aware they had a film industry there. Got a few recommendations on YouTube and I rented this movie online just to give it a try. I was blown away by the unusual story line. The movie whichs initially starts as a new found friendship between a young research scholar and a married doctor, turns into an intriguing discovery of their shared love for food. Sometimes, there is a very thin line between doing something we love and doing something that's wrong. The movie shows this transition making us realise how a need could turn into an ugly thirst for more.

Some stories run seamless and you become a part of the narrative ~ engrossed and emotions play out in your mind...you are no longer an audience.

Aamis is definitely one of them. You feel the characters, Dr. Nirmali's inner transitions or Sumon's desperation.

For me it s a full on "watch again" movie...all credit goes to the writer-director, Bhaskar, his cast and the entire team. He has succeeded in giving the audience back what they didn't come for.

In all it's subtleness the movie takes you deeper into a realm you never thought could become so dominant by the time the it ends...the ripples reached my dinner table...Aamis or Niraamis? But thankfully I managed my emotions well...it was Aamis for me.

But effect lives on...

There are movies which follow the popular trend and whose story can be easily predicted and there there are those movies which break the stereotyping and give the audience absolutely a new kind of taste. Amis falls firmly in the second category. With a story that gives a weird definition to love, Aamis will haunt you for many hours after you leave the theater. The only complain I have is that the ending could have been a bit different . I mean a 'wanting for more' kinda ending would have been a perfect desert (at least for me).

The trailer suggested this movie to have some unexpected twists and turns in a romantic relationship.But it never even hinted about the dark and realistic often undiscovered territory of the human mind that is showcased in the second half of the film.

Like many other romantic movies this movie opens up with a normal relationship building up from day to day events.The character played by Lima Das named as Nirmali is a pediatric surgent and with a sudden turn of fate somehow meets the male protagonist Suman played by Arkaprava Barua. Though by the first half it was clear that Nirmali is married and this relationship was sort of extramarital but that was pretty common in movies like this.

The original twist comes in the second half of the movie.This slow pace of events through out the entire runtime was the main catalyst to what comes next.The change in the tone of the movie was so gradual that it slips right under our skins and we only realize it at the end of the story that whatever we were watching is just a twisted representation of human obssessions. The story is revealed in such a flawless fashion that we cannot even fathom to realize for a moment the signs of extreme darkness lurking around every scenes .

Aamis is a Bengali-Assamese word which generally means non-veg.Both of the protagonists have this common trait of love for non veg dishes.However a twisted enough meaning of this word is more than enough to describe the true nature of the movie or story to unfold.The English naming of this movie "Ravening" is more suitable to describe it.

In Aamis (Ravening; English: Meat), the central male character Googles 'platonic love' soon after he admits to himself that he has fallen for an older woman. It is a hint to the type of turn that the relationship between the two characters will then take as the story proceeds, so beautifully it feels like you are having a full-course meal with unlimited supply of your favourite dishes. It paves the way for the genuinely novel plot as the characters find themselves losing self-control and being hypnotized by their own desires. The female character utters how gluttony is not a good thing right at the beginning and that gives another hint to what might ensue, despite the sweet little spark that burgeons between them as director Bhaskar Hazarika puts them into a traditional rink of relationships. The story about a young anthropology scholar and a successful paediatrician who is married, with a kid, is as eccentric as the idea of squeezing a type of bug, oozing all its liquids out, and then munching on it either to satisfy hunger or get an intoxicating trip. But what sets Aamis apart from other romantic stories chafing physical and emotional boundaries between the participants is that it gives you a new definition about platonic love. The concept of sharing one's body with another person takes a new meaning here and one that corroborates that carnivorous makeup of homo sapiens. This Assamese crime drama makes the normal likable characters explore the various possibilities that the idea of 'edible meat' brings to their table as well as their palate whether it is trying out bat meat or avoiding broiler chicken for organic alternatives. The enterprising cast of Lima Das (beautiful and so emotive) and Arghadeep Baruah (with a dovelike performance) push the movie forward and make it far more delightful than it actually is, often shooting bulbs of original humour at you. With themes such as acute carnivory, illicit love affairs, societal dogma, and psychosis forming the bizarre story and making you think about your own eating habits as well as the relationship with your loved ones, Aamis makes you feel like life is, after all, absurd. But not as absurd or obnoxious or outlandish as the things that happen in the final 30 minutes of this film that is hard to describe without using up all the synonyms for the word 'bizarre'. It is nothing like you have ever seen before in Indian cinema. But vegans, strict vegetarians (lots of sequences involving meat-based foods but no violence or gore), and environmentalists are cautioned that they should go in with an open mind. But go in they should for this is about more than the love for meat-eating. TN.

(Watched and reviewed at its India premiere at the 21st MAMI Mumbai Film Festival.)